March 01, 2013

South Texas College of Law professor who founded fantasy U.S. Supreme Court league is crowdsourcing papal prediction

Josh Blackman thinks he can predict who will be the next Pope.

Or, rather, the South Texas College of Law professor thinks the wisdom of the masses can do so using fantasypope.com, a website he launched yesterday that lets users choose the top five contenders for the papacy.

After logging on with a social-media account, people can browse descriptions of 15 candidates and choose their picks.

People can vote multiple times, as the site explains: “[W]e encourage you to vote again if the Vatican chimney bellows black smoke, signaling another round of voting will be needed.”

The crowd’s choices are more accurate than an expert, says Blackman (pictured).

He should know. Since 2009, Blackman has operated fantasySCOTUS.net, a site with 15,000 members who try to predict the outcome of U.S. Supreme Court cases. Users of the site accurately predicted that President Barack Obama would nominate Elena Kagan to the highest court in the land, says Blackman.

He expects fantasypope.com to spread across the Internet and grow quickly. He’s excited to see the final result, he says: “Did the guy we pick become the Pope?”

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